Black Hearts in Battersea Read Online Free Page B

something stolen, or found the house too dirty, or objected to being woken at one in the morning by Hanoverian songs. He had complained, taken his leave, and moved away. The Twites, annoyed at losing a lodger, had contrived an elaborate pretense that no Dr. Field had ever lived with them...
    Somehow Simon found it hard to believe this. For one thing, Dr. Field was far from fussy, and, provided he was furnished with privacy and a good light for painting, was unlikely to object if his neighbors practiced cannibalism or played the bass drum all day so long as they let him alone. And, secondly why should the Twites bother to make such a pretense about a trivial matter? Haifa dozen people, neighbors, patients, local tradesmen, would be able to give their story the lie.
    Then it occurred to Simon that he had not yet heard what Mr. or Mrs. Twite had to say; he had only had Dido's version. Perhaps the whole mystery was just her nonsense, and when he got back that night he would be handed a piece of paper with Dr. Field's address on it.
    Cheered by this reasonable notion, Simon stood up and crossed the entrance hall. A large double flight of marble stairs faced him, and between them stood a statue of a man in a huge wig, dressed in knee breeches and a painter's smock. He held a marble paintbrush and was engaged in
painting a marble picture on a marble easel. The back of the easel bore an inscription:

MARIUS RIVIÈRE
1759–1819
FOUNDED THIS ACADEMY
    Simon noticed, when he was high enough up the stairs to be able to look over the marble gentleman's shoulder, that someone had painted a picture of a pink pig wearing a blue bow on the marble canvas.
    Opposite the top of the stairs he saw a door labeled "Principal." Rather timidly he knocked on it, and an impatient voice shouted, "
Alors—entrez!
"
    Walking in, Simon found himself in a medium-sized room that was overpoweringly warm and smelt strongly of garlic and coffee and turpentine. The warmth came from two braziers full of glowing charcoal, on one of which a kettle steamed briskly. The room was so untidy—littered with stacks of canvases, baskets of fruit, wood carvings, strings of onions hanging from the ceiling, easels with pictures on them, statues—that at first Simon did not see the little man who had told him to come in. But after a moment the same irascible voice said, "
Eh bien!
Shut the door, if you please and declare yourself!"
    "Are—are you Dr. Furnace, please, sir?" Simon said hesitantly.
    "
Furrneaux,
if you please,
Furrneaux—I
cannot endure the English pronunciation."
    Dr. Furnace or Furrneaux was hardly more than three feet six inches high, and extraordinarily whiskery. As he rose up from behind his desk he reminded Simon irresistibly of a prawn. His whiskers waved, his hands waved, a pair of snapping black eyes took in every inch of Simon from his dusty shoes to the kitten's face poking inquisitively out of his jacket.

    "And so, and so?" Dr. Furrneaux said impatiently. "Who may you be?"
    "If you please, sir, my name is Simon, and I believe Dr. Field spoke about me—"
    "Ah, yes, Gabriel Field. A boy named Simon.
Attendez—
"
    Dr. Furrneaux waved his antennae imperatively, darted over to a cupboard, returned with a coffeepot, tipped coffee into it from a blue paper bag, poured in hot water, produced cups from a tea chest and sugar from another blue paper bag.
    "Now we wait a moment. A boy named Simon, yes. Gabriel Field mentioned you, yes. In a moment I shall see what you can do. You are hungry?" he said, looking sternly at Simon. "Take the bread off that brazier—zere, blockhead!—and find some plates and some butter. In ze brown jar, of course!" as Simon, bewildered, looked uncertainly about him. The brown earthenware jar resembled something from
The Arabian Nights
and could easily have held Ali Baba and a couple of thieves.
    "So, now we eat," said Dr. Furrneaux, breaking eight inches off a loaf shaped like a rolling pin and handing it to Simon. "I will